Pocketless Coat
Pocketless Coat/Portraitless Locket
(Male) I wanna be buried one day when I'm old
In a suit with the pocket cut-out of the jacket
Cause I want my last fashion statement
To let my brothers know
-This world's toys will please you
But you can't take it when you go
Its not what you bring along that saves you
Its what you left for others when you rode
The long ride of life is short
Chorus: About this time tommorrow
This train will leave its tracks
The last station in your journey
The last moment you have to look back
The clock is surely ticking Are you wearing your pocketless coat?
Are you wearing your pocketless coat?
- (Female) I wanna be buried one day when I'm old
In a locket with the portrait cut-out of the frame
Cause I want my last romantic gesture To let my sisters know
Are you grabbing your pocketless coat?
-These silly boys may please you
But you can't take them when you go
Its not who you bring along that saves you
Its who you changed when you rode
The long ride of life is short
(Repeat Chorus, but with pictureless locket)
(Both Vocals)
When are we gonna learn my children
There is nothing here and nobody to hold
Those plaques and portraits on the wall can't save you
This life is not your home
This world is just a hotel room
Are you wearing your pictureless locket?
Are you grabbing your pocketless coat?
Right before the elevator to atmosphere opens
You climb on board and God closes its doors
Will you be holding to the furniture
Will you be clinging to a portraitless locket
Or be glad you wore a pocketless coat?
Are you grabbing your pocketless coat?
Pocketless Coat was written the first time I lived in Europe, which is where you will have opportunity to meet a lot of very wealthy and materialistic people on vacation, and if you are in the military, you simultaneously are surrounded by people your age that are obsessed with either their new BMW or their Career or both. You are also made keenly aware of the fleeting nature of life when your country is attacked on 9/11 and you are called back to your squadron to fill out a Last Will and Testament and to have your gas mask inspected with the general assumption being in those early hours that we had just propelled into World War 3, living on a NATO Base only a few days drive from the Russian Border.
This is also a lesson writer John Eldredge learned when his counseling business partner and best friend Brent died in a climbing accident while they were together, his pain led him to seek out answers to write his book “Journey of Desire” about how our passions in this life such as art and music, are a taste of what we will delight in in the world to come. This life is fleeting, and it is taste of both heaven and hell. The song is also about the fleetingness of relationships as those like myself measure the life in their days not by what is found in their carport but by who is found in the rooms of their house, a tendency usually found in women but there are a few men who are true romantics as well. Edwin has a song that says “The arms of your loves ones, it’s the only home that last” but in life even the arms of your loved ones doesn’t last forever. Life worth living has to have a connection to something deeper that fragile possessions that begin in their glory and eventually are considered junk to be rid of, and also connection to someone more permanent than other humans who get sick, get old, and in one way or another lose value to most either because those who treasured them are all in the cemetery or those who treasured them no longer find the comfort of a mother or the beauty of a wife in their eyes due to a sickness or age or just the hardness of heart that comes with time. This is tragic but it is the reality at every nursing home across our Nation.
The Japanese had a word for this fleetingness we learned about in Ninjutsu, the word is “Furyu” which generally means “refinement” but has a deeper more rich and beautiful meaning. “Furyu” refers to the fleeting beauty of a moment that never returns that has a natural beauty (unaltered by man) that cannot be put into words. Today’s sunset is unaltered by man (chemtrails aside), it cannot be described in words and once the twilight pushes it past the horizon, there will never be another sunlight precisely as the one that we just witnessed and there will never be another sunset precisely as this one again. People are the same, there are no duplicates, our moments with them are never to come again in the world that is (but perhaps in the “World to Come” or “Haba Olam” as the Jews say) so they should be cherished as they pass.
If you are reading on the website, these two clips from “The Last Samurai” illustrate lessons from the life of the Samurai. https://www.youtube.com/
This concept was developed by the Samurai that were keenly aware of the fragility of life and the inevitability of life, that each sunset could literally be their last. This is Katsumoto’s moment in “The Last Samurai” as he dies honorably on the field of battle, watching his beloved Japanese Cherry Blossom Trees bloom for the last time and simply utters the word “Perfect”. May we all learn to live as Katsumoto, who was a true historical figure. Remember Your Creator in Your Youth 12 Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; 2 before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, 3 in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed, 4 and the doors on the street are shut—when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low— 5 they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along,[a] and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets— 6 before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, 7 and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. 8 Vanity[b] of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity. Fear God and Keep His Commandments 9 Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. 10 The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth. 11 The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. 12 My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. 13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.[c] 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with[d] every secret thing, whether good or evil.” Ecclesiastes 12, Solomon’s Wisdom upon his Deathbed
This life I live has nearly come to a screeching halt on several occasions, both voluntarily and involuntarily. One of the first times was when I was 5 years old and I was standing in my bedroom in this unfinished basement we lived in (the house was never completed so it was essentially a concrete floor and concrete wall box which is perfect for snakes. I had just gotten out of bed and this snake called a black moccasin or cottonmouth (depending in where you are from) crawled out from under my bed and was only about 2 feet from me with the door out of range. I think I screamed and my mom came in and killed it or got my dad to. On another occasion we lived in a log cabin and it was the first winter after getting my driver’s license. I was taking my younger brother to school and the windshield seemed to be functional until we topped the hill by the lumber mill the sunlight turns the windshield into a blinding wall of light which caused us to travel the wrong way down the opposite lane on a collision course with a log truck. It felt as if something pulled the steering wheel far to the right for me and we felt the wind of the log truck rushing by through my driver’s side window and heard the deafening blast of the truck driver’s horn.
Not soon afterwards one of my dad’s drinking buddies would point his pistol at me, and prior to this when my “driving lesson” involved driving him to the hood so he could buy a crack rock while wearing a Lynard Skynard t-shirt and a cowboy hat, we were shot at as I was trying to pull the car away from the guy in the blue bandanna as quickly as possible but this is difficult when it’s the first week you have ever tried to drive a stick-shift. Eventually I learned the lesson that life is short and we have a responsibility to do something powerful with this time we are given, even if that something powerful seems mundane and ordinary to others like raising children that will influence for the better or the worse a lifetime of people they have contact with, largely based on what they have learned from your words or your example. Parents and writers have this one rare honor in common, they change the world even after they are gone.
The other lesson I learned was to consider the vastness of Eternity, as this life is but a breathe and was vanish like grass withers in the summer sun, back into the Earth, but eternity simply doesn’t end and the condition and station and honor we receive in eternity is measured by the choices we made in this life. Would you trust yourself with immortality? Would you trust yourself to be ruler in a Kingdom marked by righteous and kindness and wisdom? Can our Creator trust us and promote us in His Kingdom (Haba Olam-The World to Come) as death is only the beginning for an experience we cannot measure or imagine, whether in fear or delight what awaits us is past our ability to understand. We live this life as a test to determine if we can be trusted will all the goodness He would like to give us in the next, unlike our ancestors who threw it all away in a rebellion against the Giver of the Gift. Once we allow Him to forgive us, we can allow Him to change us and prepare us for all we were intended to rule over and to enjoy in the world to come. This requires more than a change in behavior to appear good (we call that religion) but a change in heart that lets the goodness come from something other than ourselves, it is placed there by some strong and kind and good, bigger than us. Are you wearing your portrait less locket, are you wearing your pocketless coat?
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish (incorrectly teach) them but to fulfill (correctly teach) them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Torah until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:17-19, the Words of Yeshua the Messiah
Prayer for Those Seeking a Pocketless Coat
The Aleph and Tav, Alpha and Omega, who begins and ends the Clock of Time
We ask that you teach us to Number our Days and our Minutes Carefully
We ask that you teach us to hold our Hours Close, and our Loved Ones Close more Hours
We ask that you lead us to those Hearts we are to Love,
While we still have Sand in the Hourglass to Love Them With
We ask that our Death be made a Beautiful Moment Completed
We ask that our Last Day be the change to a Solemn Season to our Children
Not just the day when their Money Machine Broke Down
We ask that our Hearts be filled with Joy when you Smile on Us
Not just because we hear the empty clamor of man’s short lived Applause
We ask that our Lives establish your Kingdom of Truth and Love on the Earth
Not just build our Castles of Sand and our “Empire of Dirt”
“Sons of Adam are a vapor, sons of man are an illusion. In balanced scales they go up— altogether they are less than a breath.”
Psalm 62:10 Tree of Life Version
Resources: “Journey of Desire” by John Eldredge
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